DOUBLE-CROSSED

I came up with this idea around the time of my symmetry puzzle, which had a somewhat similar concept of every letter being used twice except for one.

I knew I wanted the extra letters to spell something, and at first I was aiming for "The Leftovers", the hit HBO show. But I couldn't find a good leftover V example, and I wasn't even sure some solvers would know that show.

For about two months, I tried to come up with these out of my head/through manual searching. I'd take a word that already had most of the letters used twice (COMMON, e.g.) and then search on phrases with that word (COMMON SENSE would've worked, leaving over the C, for example). I had about 15 or 16 of these, but they didn't spell anything apt and I was generating insane-looking pages in my notebook of scribbled out words. I realized I was never going to be able to get a good set on my own.

So I reached out to Jeff, who was able to write a script that generated a list of all the answers in his database that fit this pattern. From there, I was able to fill in the holes of the letters I still needed to spell out the meta answer. Huge shout-out to him for his help in putting this together, and his general role in helping constructors everywhere with their craft.

I've highlighted the special letters below — it was tough for me to see them all at once. (I imagine the impact of today's theme will be much bigger for paper solvers, who can easily circle each of them). The idea is that each starred entry has exactly two instances of each letter … except one. If you highlight each of those left-over letters, they spell REMAINDERS (reading top to bottom, left to right).

I enjoyed Joel's programming challenge. My coding was completely hacky but wow was it satisfying to crack the problem and generate a list of workable entries.

When he told me what he was looking for, I wondered how this concept would resonate with solvers. It took too long to see that the R in HIPPOCRATIC OATH was the leftover, and that was the case going all the way down. I do think it's a novel, interesting idea — and REMAINDERS is appropriate — but I fear that some solvers won't go back after filling in the last box.

I was amazed to see this is a 134-word puzzle, as Sunday grids at that level are almost always splattered with ugly swaths of crossword glue to hold them together. I breezed through the puzzle, hardly noticing the usual suspects like HOW I because they were rare. And to come across so many great entries — FAULT LINES, SPEECH BUBBLES, UP TO YOU, SAUTE PAN, NICOTINE PATCH — I really didn't need any theme in order to enjoy all the snazzy fill. Since I didn't have a way to circle the leftover letters in the theme, I just treated the puzzle like it was a big themeless, and I really enjoyed that.

Joel was wise to put all his long fill in the vertical direction, all spread out through the grid. More spacing = more filling flexibility. People would be wise to study this sort of layout.

I'm guessing that I would have given this the POW! if I had solved it on paper, circling the leftover letters as I went.